Paper Promises and Alibis
by dimefor12
Summary: Dean's thoughts on Sam. Pre-Pilot. Contains Wincest.


It's too late to be early by the time he pulls into the diner. Some trashy mom-n-pop place in Illinois, just like a thousand others he's seen, stopped at. But this one takes the cake, and he warms up to the name _Eat 'N Run, _because it sends his brain down to the red-light district every time he thinks of it.

It's strange to get out of the Impala, to slam the door, and not wait for the echo over on the passenger side; he's still training himself to ignore the emptiness that now hovers, Sam-shaped, at his right side. But tonight he doesn't linger as long, doesn't spiral down into disbelief, before he heads inside. It's a start, and Dean's good at settling for what he can get.

The diner's almost empty, and that's a comfort. A waitress--possibly the place's _only _one, if the lines and bags under her eyes are anything to go by--wanders over, and he orders a coffee and the Midnight Special (bacon, eggs, toast. _Breakfast_, but whatever). She walks off, and Dean doesn't look twice; he's too tired, and she's too not his type to be even vaguely interested.

He hadn't come here for pleasure, anyway (_who would, _he thinks, _the chicks look like gremlins_), but his dad had heard of attacks--an outbreak of rabid dogs, never mind that the rabid dogs work on a timetable. _Considerate_--and had sent Dean to check it out. He had, came down, asked the families of the first attacks what happened, confirmed that it _was _a werewolf--_lycanthrope, _Sammy's voice chimes in--and tracked the sonuvabitch down.

Only when he got there, to the studio apartment the man _still _owned, he found it layered in dust, smelling stale and unlived in. So, starting over, he went to the police, asked where they thought the attacks originated from. He followed their leads back to an abandoned farm, house intact. Then, he realized something else. Something, _possibly_, that he should've noticed earlier, but it was too late, _too late, _because the first werewolf had created a _pack_; a pack of werewolves that by the smell and sight hadn't hesitated to sink into their new lives. They weren't human for most days out of the month, and beasts at the full moon, like most Dean'd run across. No. They lived, even as humans, like killers.

He was outnumbered, honest-to-god, but they were slow--just changed, still shaking off the disorientation--and he managed to get a few, silver straight to the heart, before the rest attacked. But, seeing their dead comrades as a warning, they were more intent on escaping, getting _away_ (and Dean thinks _away _as in another county, another _state_), and they clawed and charged, but didn't _bite-tear-rip _like he was expecting.

He chalks it up as a loss, but he knows it happens sometimes, and he'll go wherever he needs if he hears of them again. _It's stupid to go in alone; you know it is. You could get killed, and no one would ever know. _He hates it, that voice; Sam's warnings, lectures, _everything, _loop in his head, and with the Impala empty, the hotel rooms turned to singles, it's beginning to feel like nails scraping behind his eyes.

It's an irritation he can do without; sometimes he thinks about going to California, to _fuckin' Stanford_, and telling Sam to fuck-off outta his head. Because, really, it isn't enough that he leaves for greener pastures or whatever the hell the kid was looking for, but he has to leave the most annoying pieces of himself behind? But Dean hasn't driven that way for a year and half, and he isn't going to now. He knows it; Sam left, and Dean's not ready to see him happy, living a life without him and being content in it.

Instead, he does what he's done million times before--presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. The pressure eases the sharp ache, and for a moment it isn't distance he feels, only the heated force of his own skin; it almost feels like release, and Dean can finally draw in enough air.

"Tired, hon?" He takes his hands away, runs them over his mouth, and looks at the waitress, finally, _finally _bringing him coffee. Knowingly, she puts an empty cup in front of him and shakes the carafe. "Sorry, had to wait for a new pot to make. Greg," she points to an older man in plaid and dusty jeans, "had the last bit outta the old stuff. And anyways, you look like you could do with the whole thing."

He manages to smile, though by her look it doesn't do much. "Yeah," he says and squints at the battered nametag attached to her uniform. "Jamie. I think I could use that, too." And she fills the cup to the brim, then sets the carafe in the middle of the table. "Thanks."

"No problem, hon. Your food'll be out in a jiff, okay?" At his nod, she leaves again, and he watches her hang her upper body over the divider between counter and kitchen, mouth moving fast and face more animated than he'd seen coming in. It makes her look less tired. For some reason, this almost makes his smile more genuine.

But there's coffee before him, and he gulps down two-thirds of the cup, ignoring how _hot _the dark liquid is. He feels it almost immediately; the weariness slips from his bones and he can blink his eyes and not feel like there's sandpaper glued to the backs of his eyelids. It's enough for him, and maybe by the time he's drunk the rest of it, he'll feel slightly human again.

Right now that's all he can wish; the gouges marking his chest and arms aren't deep, didn't require stitches (which is good, because it took longer than he hoped for the adrenaline to leave his system and steady his hands), but they sting like anything. Even that, though, would be alright, just one more thing to add to a shitty day. It would be, but Sam's ghost hangs over him, leaves him in a funk, and he doesn't know why. It's not the same intense _betrayal _that dogged him in the beginning, but it's memoriesand images that flash through his mind when he least expects it, when he thinks he's his own man again.

A year and a half. That's how long Sammy's been gone, and Dean's pretty sure that's enough time for the average Joe to deal and get on with it, but he's been taking care of his brother for sixteen; there's no way, his mind helpfully supplies, that a measly year and a half is gonna override _that._

Not when he can remember being followed around by a hero-worshipping five year-old; always having a pair of green eyes adore him, even when he screwed up, even when he felt lower than dirt. And, yeah, from this distance, he knows he didn't fully appreciate it, couldn't, really, because he was just a kid, then, too. Each time Sam said _wait up _or _can I come _it had felt like being held back, leashed, by his little brother.

Then puberty hit, and Dean learned how to regret. Suddenly, it was him trying to be a big brother again, to be seen, and Sammy had wanted no part of it. That sweet little kid had transformed into an angst-ridden pile of hormones that screeched _I want to be normal _if you even breathed weird. So, yeah, turnabout's fair play. He got it, then, and left Sam to whatever he did when Dean wasn't around. Gave him space, and tried not to miss who Sam had been, and thought that Sam'd come around when he was ready.

It hadn't happened, though. Not really. Until a night when Sam had been seventeen, and _happy. _Dean can't remember now what had caused that change in him, remembers thinking then that maybe he'd aced an exam, thinks now that he'd probably heard back from Stanford. But, regardles of the reasons, that night he had smiled, bright and wild, and laughed like everything was perfect.

"Hey," he startles, blinks and Jamie shifts into focus, holding a plate, the food he had ordered a lifetime ago. "You've been staring at that table pretty hard."

The way she says it makes it obvious she's curious, but he just shakes his head. Says, "I guess so," and "Thanks," when she sets the plate in front of him.

The food is still steaming, looks as good as anything ordered in a diner two steps from bankruptcy. And he grabs the hotsauce, pours it over the eggs; he's always liked watching the red-orange mix and swirl with yellow when the yolk is broken open, loved hearing Sam's indignant, _You're gonna die from a heart attack at twenty-five, dude, _every time he did it. But now, there's silence, and he's almost twenty-six and still kickin', so he guesses his little brother doesn't have all the answers, even though Sam'd thought so.

_Their dad was gone, some hunt hundreds of miles away, and Dean had stayed at the run-down apartment with Sammy, tried not to go stir-crazy in the cramped confines, with the endless talk of school, soccor, and geekery his brother relished. Most times it didn't work, and Sam knew and treated him like a rabid dog. No bright lights, no quick movements, no loud sounds. Whatever. But tonight, Sam was smiling, and the harsh glow of the television did nothing to mar it, didn't take anything from it. It was after one, nothing but infomercials, and they were both tired. But Dean couldn't end it, couldn't say goodnight, when he hadn't seen his brother like this since he was a skinny little ten-year-old. And so he smiled back, real and not the smarm he gave to everyone else; Sam saw it, grew brighter, said, "Well, 'night, Dean," and leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek, pulled away laughing._

He can't say that kiss had been anything but brotherly; really, it had been nothing more than an imitation of their childhood, when Dean would tell Sammy stories, then press lips to his brother's forehead before tucking him in at night. That's all. At that moment, though, he had seen a way to call back who they had been--_brothers, _who had always lived in each other's pockets, always together, and that's why he had grasped Sam's shoulders, reeled him back in (_heavy weight over him, large-slender-delicate hands braced on the armrest above his head) _and ran his tongue over soft-rough lips, pressed inside when Sam had relented.

It hadn't been about lust, Dean knows. It hadn't been about pining for years after his little brother, hadn't been about sex at all, even though that's what had followed. It _had _been about trying the only thing they had never done to find a common ground again, a connection. Sam'd been building bridges to get to other places for all those years, had crossed them and burned them so Dean couldn't follow. It had went on so long that he knew--still knows--that Sam had lost his way back, but for a little while Dean had believed that he'd gotten his brother back.

It sounds cliché, even to Dean, but when it was just them, _alone, _he could run his hands over his brother's skin, taste and learn with lips, with tongue; he could be gentle in ways he couldn't be any other way, how maybe he had forgotten how to be; because, yeah, when push comes to shove he isn't a very tactile person, doesn't do the touchy-feeling shit, but Sam? Sam had always wanted that touch and closeness so much it seemed like the only way he understood affection. And so maybe when Dean stopped doing that Sam had thought Dean didn't care anymore. Stupid, but Dean's never put anything past his brother.

That was reinforced the next morning when Sammy had smiled, small but there, Dean had seen the warmth of it, and knew his brother _got_ it, finally. And though Dean doesn't believe in fate or any of that predestined bullshit, when he remembers it now, over eggs and bacon and too much coffee, he thinks when it comes to Sam he could almost believe it _had_ to happen.

He finishes the last remains of his food, pours another cup of coffee, which is looking more syrupy from sitting too long. But he drinks it anyway, beyond caring; he just wants this jaunt down memory-lane over with so he can _move, _can leave it in the past where it belongs. He's not the broody one out of the Winchesters, Sam and Dad have that route covered, so it strikes him as funny that he here is, alone in a dinner and angsting, when Sam is living the collegiate dream in Palo Alto.

Jamie comes 'round again, slides the check onto the edge of the table, and veers away. He's done, anyway, after the coffee, so he opens the battered black cover, takes a glance and slides in a twenty for the food and ten for a tip, because he's feeling generous, and there's only him to pay for, anyway.

_"I'm gonna go, Dean. It's what I've waited for, and I'm not going to pass it up for this. Hunting."  
"Alright, man. I get it. But couldn't you, I dunno, been nicer about it? To Dad, I mean. Why'd you want him to cut you off like that?"  
"Me, Dean? That was all him." But there's something in Sam's eyes, closed off and secret. Dean doesn't pry.  
"Fine. Yeah. Do what you want."_

Eighteen and leaving. California, home of the perma-tan. But neither had brought up what they did; they didn't have to, because it never was a binding tie or a fail-safe against the future. It was what they needed, just another way the fucked-up Winchester boys lived. So, okay, their incestuous relationship never made the pro or con list on the staying versus leaving chart for either of them, but it still had stunned Dean how quickly the--whatever--had snapped. How quick Sam was to break it. The kicker was, for Dean anyway, that Sam hadn't fled because of shame or embarrassment or any of the million other reasons he could have had. He went because that was what he had always intended. Whatever connection Dean had tried to make couldn't stand up to Sam.

Standing, he manages to wave half-heartedly to Jamie, then walk through the cramp of sitting too long in a hard plastic booth. The bell chimes as he pushes the door open, waits for a half-beat then jerks his arm away, letting the door swing shut behind him. There's no one at his back, no one to watch for, as he makes his way to the Impala, black and sturdy under the lone light. The car creaks as he settles in, turns the ignition. It's the same every time, and he relishes it, lets the deep-throated hum sink into him for a moment, lets it take away any other thought.

And as he pulls out, starts down the road spread endlessly before him, he thinks, _it's not so bad at night. _With the headlights cutting the darkness, the wind--still thick with spring--rushing in through the open window, he thinks he's always known _this best._


End file.
